International data and analytics firm Globaldata has reported an uptick in annual profits as it benefitted from the global rush to big data analytics.
The firm posted a pretax profit of £41.5m in 2023, an eight per cent increase from £38.4m the year before.
Meanwhile, revenue came in at £273.1m last year, up 12 per cent from £243.2m in 2022.
Globaldata announced in December that private equity firm Inflexion would acquire a 40 per cent stake in its healthcare business for £434m, a valuation of £1.15bn, almost equivalent to Globaldata’s entire market capitalisation at the time.
The deal is set to close in the second quarter of 2024, Globaldata said on Monday. Healthcare made up 38 per cent of its revenues last year.
Chief executive Mike Danson said the “significant milestone” would “unlock substantial value for our shareholders and offers us the flexibility to launch a more ambitious approach to growth, including accelerating value-creating M&A across the group”.
He added: “2023 has been a year of positive operational and financial momentum for Globaldata. Over the last four years we have transformed this business, having completed our growth optimisation plan, which was set to finish at the end of 2024, earlier than planned.”
The firm launched a new growth optimisation plan for 2024 to 2026 following the Inflexion announcement that has seen its corporate structure reorganised into three divisions – healthcare, consumer and technology.
Globaldata is targeting £500m of revenue by the end of 2026, which it said it would achieve through “a combination of organic growth and M&A”.
It said its net cash proceeds of around £434m last year would give it scope for further acquisitions, having made eight under its last growth plan.
The firm’s adjusted earnings per share rose to 6.8p from 6.1p in 2023. Globaldata proposed a final dividend of 3.2p, boosting its total for the year 28 per cent to 4.6p.